Min Lee - Pachinko

She knew as well as he did that after the peninsula was divided, the Koreans in Japan ended up choosing sides, often more than once, affecting their residency status. It was still hard for a Korean to become a Japanese citizen, and there were many who considered such a thing shameful — for a Korean to try to become a citizen of its former oppressor. When she told her friends in New York about this curious historical anomaly and the pervasive ethnic bias, they were incredulous at the thought that the friendly, well-mannered Japanese they knew could ever think she was somehow criminal, lazy, filthy, or aggressive — the negative stereotypical traits of Koreans in Japan. “Well, everyone knows that the Koreans don’t get along with the Japanese,” her friends would say innocently, as if all things were equal. Soon, Phoebe stopped talking about it with her friends back home.

Solomon found it peculiar that Phoebe got so angry about the history of Koreans in Japan. After three months of living in Tokyo and reading a few history books, she’d concluded that the Japanese would never change. “The government still refuses to acknowledge its war crimes!” Strangely, in these conversations, Solomon found himself defending the Japanese.

They planned on visiting Seoul together for a week when the deal season ended and work slowed down. He hoped Seoul would be some sort of neutral territory for them — a place to feel normal since they were both Korean immigrants of a kind. And it didn’t hurt that Phoebe spoke very good Korean; his Korean was pathetic at best. He had visited South Korea with his father several times, and everyone there always treated them like they were Japanese. It was no homecoming; however, it was great to visit. After a while, it had been easier just to play along as Japanese tourists who had come to enjoy the good barbecue rather than to try to explain to the chest-beating, self-righteous Koreans why their first language was Japanese.

Solomon was in love with Phoebe. They had been together since sophomore year. He couldn’t imagine life without her, and yet, seeing her discomfort here made him realize how different they were. They were both ethnically Korean and had grown up outside Korea, but they weren’t the same. Back home, on the ground in Japan, their differences seemed that much more pronounced. They hadn’t had sex in two weeks. Would it be that way when they married? Would it get worse? Solomon thought about these things as he headed to the game.

Tonight was his fourth poker night with the guys at work. Solomon and one other junior associate, Louis, a hapa M & A guy from Paris, had been asked to join; the rest of the players were managing directors and executive directors. The cast changed a little, but there were usually six or seven guys. Never any girls. Solomon was a brilliant poker player. In the first game, he had played it easy and come out neutral; in the second game, when he felt more comfortable, he came second, and after the third game, Solomon walked out with most of the 350,000-yen pot. The others were annoyed, but he thought it was worth making a point — when he wanted to win, he could.

This evening, he planned to pay up a little. The guys were a good bunch — no sore losers; Solomon hoped to keep playing with them. No doubt, they had invited him thinking he was more or less a fish; they didn’t know that he was an econ major at Columbia who had double minored in poker and pool.

They played Anaconda, also called “Pass the Trash” because you could get rid of your bad cards to the guy on your left — first three cards, then two cards, and then one more, betting all the while. A moron could have won the game, because there was so much luck involved, but what Solomon enjoyed was the betting. He liked watching others bet or go out.

The players met in the paneled basement of a no-name izakaya in Roppongi. The owner was a friend of Kazu-san, Solomon’s boss and the most senior managing director at Travis, and he let them use the room once a month as long as they drank enough and ordered plenty of food. Each month, one guy hosted and picked up the tab. Initially, the managing directors thought it wasn’t fair to make the associates pay, since they earned much less, but after Solomon won on the third game, enough of them said “The kid can buy dinner.” Solomon was hosting this one.

Six guys were playing, and the pot was 300,000 yen. Three hands in, Solomon kept it safe: He won nothing and lost nothing.

“Hey, Solly,” Kazu said, “what’s going on? Did luck leave you, buddy?”

His boss, Kazu, was a Japanese national who was educated in California and Texas, and despite his bespoke suits and elegant Tokyo dialect, his English speech pattern was pure American frat boy. His family tree was filled with dukes and counts who had been stripped of their titles after the war, and his mother’s side came from connected branches of shogun families. At Travis, Kazu made lots of rain. Five of the six most important banking deals last year took place because Kazu had made them happen. It was also Kazu who had brought Solomon into the game. The older guys grumbled about losing to the kid, but Kazu shut them up, saying that competition was good for everyone.

Solomon liked his boss; everyone did. He was lucky to be one of Kazu’s boys and to be invited to the famous monthly poker games. There were guys in Kazu’s team who had worked for Travis for ten years and had never been asked. Whenever Phoebe said Japanese people were racist, Solomon would bring up Etsuko and Kazu as personal evidence for his argument to the contrary. Etsuko was the obvious example of a Japanese person who was kindhearted and ethnically unbiased, but Phoebe barely understood her, since Etsuko’s English was terrible. Kazu was Japanese, and he had been far kinder to Solomon than most Koreans in Japan, who had occasionally eyed him with suspicion as a wealthy man’s son or as competition at school. Yes, some Japanese thought Koreans were scum, but some Koreans were scum, he told Phoebe. Some Japanese were scum, too. There was no need to keep rehashing the past; he hoped Phoebe would get over it eventually.

It was time to discard, take new cards, and place bets. Solomon threw away a useless nine of diamonds and a two of hearts, then picked up the jack and a three he needed for a full house. Luck had never left him. Whenever Solomon played cards, he felt strong and smooth, like he couldn’t lose; he wondered if he felt this way because he didn’t care about the money. He liked being at the table; he liked the bullshit guy talk. With this hand, he had a solid chance at the current pot, which was easily over a hundred thousand yen. Solomon bet thirty thousand. Louis and Yamada-san, the Japanese Aussie, folded, leaving Solomon, Ono, Giancarlo, and Kazu. Ono’s face was blank and Giancarlo scratched his ear.

Ono bet another twenty thousand, and immediately, Kazu and Giancarlo folded. Giancarlo said, laughing, “You two are assholes.” He took a long sip of his whiskey. “Are there any more of those chicken things on sticks?”

“ Yakitori ,” Kazu said, “You live in Japan; dude, learn what to call chicken on a stick.”

Giancarlo gave him the finger, smiling and revealing his short, even teeth.

Kazu signaled to the waiter and ordered for everyone.

It was time to show hands, and Ono only had two pairs. He’d been bluffing.

Solomon fanned out his cards.

“You son of a bitch,” Ono said.

“Sorry, sir,” Solomon said, sweeping the money toward him in an easy, practiced manner.

“Never apologize for winning, Solly,” Kazu said.

“He can apologize a little for taking my money,” Giancarlo retorted, and the others laughed.

“Man, I can’t wait until I put you on one of my deals. You will be hanging out with boxes of due diligence all fucking weekend, and I will make sure you only get ugly girls to work with,” Ono said. He had a doctorate in economics from MIT and was on his fourth marriage. Each successive wife was even more gorgeous than the prior one. As a very senior electronics banker during the Japan boom, he had made obscene money and still worked without stopping. Ono said that the purpose of hard work was simple: Sex with pretty women was worth whatever it took.